Members of the Nuangola Borough Council, led by President John Kochan, again announced discord within the community and differences with sewer contractor Wexcon and engineer Quad3.

At the August 12th meeting, few items relating to the $9 million project earned Council’s approval -starting with a rehash of a comment regarding the necessity of a vote cast years ago guarantying the second sewer loan.

Next up was a comment from Councilor Ron Kaiser stating that a recent news report said that delinquent residents will suffer financial consequences. “Shouldn’t we try to help these people?” he asked.

Councilman Michael Johnson who serves as liaison to the Nuangola Sewer Authority offered a run down from the previous evening’s sewer authority meeting. He said that 38 residents have not paid any monthly treatment fees to the Mountaintop Area Joint Sanitary Authority. A total of 90 resident have not hooked up to the community sewer. He said that there may well be penalties and fines imposed against the delinquent residents.

“The Sewer Authority solicitor is

developing a list of 90 residents,” Johnson said. “If we have to file suit it’s going to a very costly and time consuming process. It’s the people that are ignoring us that are the problem.”

“My concern is to help the people that need help,” Kaiser replied.

Johnson countered that the SA “bent over backwards,” to help, but five property owners “just don’t have the money.”

Conversely, residents experience constant reminders of the damages left by the construction project in the form of pitted pavement and crumbling roads. Streets and Light Chair Joseph Tucker said, “We gave them a detailed report on the status of the restoration of roads and made it perfectly clear that we are not happy with certain areas of the borough. Now, we have to wait for a response from the sewer authority and (borough and project engineer) Quad3.

Under his report, Johnson explained that the sewer authority is concerned that seeking compliance from the 90 people who have not hooked up is a priority, “It should be noted, if we do have to file lawsuits against those people, there is nothing in the budget to cover that. It will be an increase in the user fee if it does, in fact, happen… Who knows what the fees will be?”

He said that the focus has to be on acquiring easements from every property owner, “It’s to every resident’s advantage to sign the easement,” Johnson cautioned.

Kochan asked, “Weren’t these supposed to be done before they did the job? Didn’t Quad3 get paid $27,000 to do this? My question is, what happened to that money?”

Johnson said that goes back to 2008, at meetings held at the Grove, easements were signed, but they weren’t notarized, the appropriate